One driver, travelling on I-75 in Indiana noticed a driver ahead swerving his car and driving erratically. So the driver, David Kollar took out his camera and began recording. As Koller sped up to get a closer picture of the of the erratic driver, his camera captured a little more than he anticipated. A gun, pointed directly at him.
The erratic driver, a 51-year-old doctor by the name of Perrin Dobyns, rolled his passenger window down, pointed his 9mm to the man holding the camera in the car alongside him and fired. The bullet grazed Mr Koller, but he was not hit.
After police was told of the situation, they showed up at Perrin Dobyns’ place of work – Indiana’s Branchville Correctional Facility. It appeared that the man who shot his 9mm trying to hit the motorist filming him was a doctor at the prison.
Now I’ve seen a lot of graphics, cartoons and pictures describing the recent Republican Government Shutdown. But I must say, I’ve seen none more accurate or descriptive than the cartoon shown below.
The cartoon shows the Teaparty god Ted Cruz, sitting on the head of the Republican party while John Boehner, the leaderless leader of the House of Representatives follows behind the elephant, scooping up the…well… the fecal deposits from his party.
According to a pre-shutdown survey by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, 56% of 18- to 29-year-olds said they believed that ensuring affordable access to healthcare is a bigger priority than reducing the deficit.
And according to an ABC-Washington Post poll, among 18- to 39-year-olds, 44% approve of how Obama is handling debt negotiations. Meanwhile, 39% approve of how Democrats in Congress are handling it, and only 30% support the GOP.
“There’s a real risk for Republicans that they’ll shoulder more of the blame with this section of the electorate,” said Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson.
“Young voters tend to be less ideological and more interested in the idea of compromise,” she said. “At the start of this week, the polls showed Republicans would shoulder slightly more of the blame among young voters. … At this point, your average young voter is not being dramatically affected by shutdown. But if the shutdown continues for a while, or if heaven forbid we default and there’s economic carnage, this could be a whole new ballgame, and I’d expect polls that look very different–and not in a good way for Republicans.”
John Della Volpe, the director of polling at Harvard’s Institute of politics, said the shutdown will “make an already difficult task even more difficult” in recruiting younger voters. Younger Americans are likely to see “Obama standing for what he believes in and that Republicans are holding Obama and health care hostage for short term political gain.”
A federal judge was less than amused when Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) requested that a lawsuit he filed two years ago be allowed to move forward in spite of the fact that federal courts have been immobilized by the Republican shutdown of the U.S. government. According to Think Progress, Judge Amy Berman Jackson refused to consider violating the shutdown to handle the case, saying that it’s ridiculous for Issa to make the request, considering his caucus’ role in ordering the government to close.
Issa filed a motion as part of his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s failed investigation into supposed misdeeds by the Department of Justice in the “Fast and Furious” operation. Issa is still attempting to order Attorney General Eric Holder to hand over confidential documents or risk being held in contempt of court.
The motion insisted that a “Contingency Plan provides that Department employees may continue to work on matters necessary to the discharge of the President’s constitutional duties and powers,” and therefore his actions against President Barack Obama and the Justice Department should not be affected by the federal work stoppage.
Judge Jackson responded, “There are no exigent circumstances in this case that would justify an order of the Court forcing furloughed attorneys to return to their desks. Moreover, while the vast majority of litigants who now must endure a delay in the progress of their matters do so due to circumstances beyond their control, that cannot be said of the House of Representatives, which has played a role in the shutdown that prompted the stay motion.”
In other words, Jackson told Issa that if he wants to continue his quixotic campaign against the White House and Department of Justice, he and his cohorts in the House should lift the shutdown order.
DANBURY, Conn. (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Lauryn Hill was released from federal prison Friday and will spend three months under home confinement under terms of her guilty plea to failing to pay taxes.
Hill’s attorney, Nathan Hochman, said the former Fugees singer left the prison in Danbury, Conn., on Friday. She was sentenced in July to serve three months in prison.
“Ms. Hill was released today from federal prison after serving her sentence,” Hochman said in an email. “She was released several days early based on a number of factors the Bureau of Prisons takes into consideration, including good behavior. She will now start today a one-year period of probation with three months of home confinement during that year.”
Hill, who started singing with the Fugees as a teenager in the 1990s before releasing her multiplatinum 1998 album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” pleaded guilty last year in New Jersey to failing to pay taxes on more than $1.8 million earned from 2005 to 2007.
In this week’s address, President Obama said that Republicans in the House of Representatives chose to shut down the government over a health care law they don’t like. He urged the Congress to pass a budget that funds our government, with no partisan strings attached.
The President made clear he will work with anyone of either party on ways to grow this economy, create new jobs, and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul – but not under the shadow of these threats to our economy.
Madonna seems to have it all when it comes to fame and her career.
While she is living a lavish life these days, it turns out that she was taken to rock bottom when she was just 19 years old, right before her fame days came.
In the newest issue of Harper’s Bazaar, Madonna opens up about moving to NYC for the first time and being raped on top of a roof at knife-point.
In the last two decades of her fame, the “Like A Prayer” singer finally reveals details about a night she will never forget.
She tells the mag:
‘New York wasn’t everything I thought it would be. It did not welcome me with open arms. The first year, I was held up at gunpoint. Raped on the roof of a building I was dragged up to with a knife in my back.’
‘I was defiant. Hell-bent on surviving. On making it. But it was hard and it was lonely, and I had to dare myself every day to keep going,’
They all voted with joy to shut down the government – a move that amounted to yet another failed stunt to get rid of Obamacare. Their government shutdown move immediately caused 800,000 workers to be sent home without pay. But Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) told WTVD in Raleigh, N.C. that she won’t be giving up pay during the government shutdown because, well… as she puts it, “I need my paycheck. That’s the bottom line.”
Butch Matthews is a 61-year-old former small business owner from Little Rock, Arkansas who used to wake up every morning at 4 A.M. to deliver canned beverages to retailers before retiring in 2010. A lifelong Republican, he was heavily skeptical of the Affordable Care Act when it first passed. “I did not think that Obamacare was going to be a good plan, I did not think that it was going to help me at all,” he told ThinkProgress over the phone.
But after doing a little research, Matthews eventually realized how much the law could help him. And on Tuesday, his local Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) provider confirmed that he would be able to buy a far better plan than his current policy while saving at least $13,000 per year through Arkansas’ Obamacare marketplace.
Matthews was self-employed between 1997 and 2010, meaning he had to purchase his own plan on the individual market. He chose a Blue Cross Blue Shield plan for himself and his wife that charged a $250 per month premium and had a $2,000 deductible. But the price of that policy kept rising even as it covered fewer of his costs, eventually devolving into his current rate of $1,069 per month with a $10,000 deductible. At this point, it doesn’t even cover his medication or doctors’ visits — particularly concerning considering he had to have two stents placed in his heart in 2006.
“I do not work now, I’m 61, and we do have assets saved up. But still, to come up with that $1,069 per month….” he said, trailing off. “I went to Blue Cross Blue Shield, and they don’t even sell that plan anymore, but I could not change it to anything else. So I was locked in with it.”
That all changed once Obamacare’s state-level marketplaces opened to the public on Tuesday. Matthews knew that, at his income level, the law would help him pay for insurance. But even he might not have expected just how good of a deal he could get: his new coverage will cost him absolutely nothing in monthly premiums after factoring in federal subsidies, and has a deductible of $750.
“Which is a lot different from $10,000,” he pointed out, laughing.
The mid-level “Silver” policy that he picked out also offers a significantly better benefits package. “It’s a lot better plan,” Matthews said. His old plan was considered to be “Bronze” and had much higher co-pays. Under Obamacare, when Matthews visits a doctor, it will no longer cost him around $150. It will cost $8.
So what would Matthews tell other Americans who are skeptical about Obamacare? “I would tell them to learn more about it before they start talking bad about it,” he noted. “Be more informed, get more information, take your time and study and not just go by just what you hear on one side or the other. Actually check the facts on it.”
“I still am a very strong Republican, but this… I’m so happy that this came along,” he continued.
Yet another Republican who cannot figure out what they are trying to get from shutting down the government. We previously heard Marlin Stuzman of Indiana say he doesn’t know what Republicans want. And now Peter King of New York is joining that chorus.
If these Republicans don’t know what they want, why are they insisting on keeping hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed and causing even more damage to the economy?
House Democratic leaders will begin circulating a discharge petition Friday in hopes of forcing a vote on a “clean” spending bill.
GOP leaders have so far refused to stage a vote on the Senate-passed continuing resolution (CR), insisting that the measure also include conservative provisions scaling back President Obama’s healthcare law.
But with more than 20 centrist Republicans indicating support for a clean CR, the Democrats are hoping they can attract the 218 signatures required to force such of vote.
The Democrats’ gambit is a long-shot, however, as there’s no indication that those centrist Republicans would poke their leadership even further by signing the discharge petition.
Indeed, those Republicans have sided with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on a series of votes this week to fund the government with piecemeal bills – a strategy rejected by Obama and the Democrats.
Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) launched their discharge-petition effort Friday after an afternoon meeting in the Capitol, where the Democratic Caucus huddled with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to discuss the party’s shutdown strategy.
“It is very unfortunate that the majority of the House has not been allowed to freely cast its vote to reopen the government,” Miller said. “But one thing [that’s] becoming clearer is that, as the shutdown drags on, a growing number of Republican members of Congress want the opportunity to work with Democrats to end this crisis.”
Under their petition strategy, Miller said, the House could vote on a clean CR on Oct. 14, at the earliest.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
